SSPB-004: Is Jake Awake?
by StellarStylus
Summary: Plot bunny one-shot, up for adoption. Jake wanted to save both his cousin Rachel and his brother Tom, but now after the final battle, he is trapped drifting between two different realities: In both of them, one of them lived but the other one died. Inspired by both "The Day the Earth Stood Still" by SoloMoon and "The Morning After" by Feeney. Inspired by the TV series Awake.


DISCLAIMER: I don't _Animorphs_; that belongs to K.A. Applegate, Scholastic, and various other parties. This is loosely based on the premise of the TV series _Awake_, but entirely applied to specific _Animorphs_ characters.

SUMMARY: Jake wanted to save both his cousin Rachel and his brother Tom, but now after the final battle, he is trapped drifting between two different realities: In both of them, one of them lived but the other one died. So how does he handle this? Inspired by both "The Day the Earth Stood Still" by SoloMoon and "The Morning After" by Feeney. Loosely inspired by the TV series Awake.

SPOILERS: _Animorphs #54: The Beginning_ (obviously).

* * *

"Is Jake Awake?"

by StellarStylus

* * *

_Dedicated to both __**SoloMoon**_ _(author of the "Eleutherophobia" series, starting with the story "The Day the Earth Stood Still") and __**Feeney**_ _(author of the story "The Morning After") for inspiring me to do something like this._

* * *

Jake Berenson sits in the therapist's office, looking very guarded.

He is now the savior of Earth, the most revered hero in human history... and he still isn't even old enough to sign up for the military to fight and die for his country that way.

But now, here he is, sitting in a therapist's office, all so he can spill his guts out to someone because he "needed help."

He only hopes that he could trust this therapist, because the last thing he needs is a "confidential" trusted source somehow spilling the beans on him, be it for money or any other reason.

"Tell me again about the final battle," his theraipst kindly says.

His mind flashes back to the final battle…

* * *

_He was standing aboard the helm of the Pool ship, and through the viewfinder he could see what was taking place aboard the Blade ship._

_Rachel and Tom were engaged in mortal combat, and now Tom, back in his human form, was holding a Dracon beam aimed directly at Rachel's ursine face (she was still in her grizzly bear morph)._

_Now Jake was getting desperate, and he could only think of one thing to do…_

"_All power to the engines," he ordered. "Ram the Blade ship."_

_The resulting collision knocks him out for a little while there._

* * *

"So what happened next, Mister Berenson?" the woman asks him.

Jake sighs. He takes a moment to fiddle with the green bracelet on his wrist before he finally speaks up again. "Well… between the two people who I wanted to save more than anything else, only one of them made it out alive… and the other one didn't."

* * *

_Jake stood at Rachel's funeral, with Tom holding him shoulder-to-shoulder. Cassie stood a few feet away, but Jake didn't move to be with her; he didn't think that she could forgive him for getting her best friend killed._

_Off to one side, his aunt Naomi was glaring at him as she protectively held her other two daughters close to her. As if Jake would get them killed too, just by being there._

_Looking up, Jake scanned the tree line, looking for any sign of Tobias. No such luck. Maybe he was hiding, just waiting for the right moment. Jake was really hoping he could talk to Tobias again, if only for one more time before he fled into the wild and away from human civilization._

_Later that night, Jake waited for the longest time to fall asleep, absentmindedly rubbing his wrist with the green bracelet all the while._

* * *

When Jake wakes up again, he is now wearing a red bracelet instead of a green one. Sighing, he pulls himself together, got up off the couch, and gets ready to go see his therapist in a few hours. He isn't looking forward to it, but the man seems too nice to just blow off like that.

* * *

_Jake stood at Tom's funeral, with Rachel hugging him tight as he tried to fight back the tears which threatened to escape. He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he saw Tobias, standing there in human morph and wearing a nice suit, looking sympathetic. (Deep down, Jake wondered if Tobias realized the horrible decision which Jake had made: Sacrificing his own brother so that Rachel and Tobias could still be together.)_

_Jake had to draw in comfort and support from his friends, because he sure wasn't getting any of that from his parents, who were sitting separately and were determinedly looking anywhere but at him. He supposed that he couldn't blame them; after all, he did kill their elder son, his own older brother._

_How could his own family ever be whole again? Would they ever forgive him? Would he even be able to ever forgive himself?_

_Different life, different funeral for a different dead family member... but once again, he was rubbing his wrist where his bracelet was. Except now it was red instead of green._

* * *

"So, how have you been coping with it, Mr. Berenson?" he asks Jake.

* * *

_"Well, come on, those waves aren't going to surf themselves!"_

_They've never gone surfing before. So why not?_

_And so Jake spent the day hanging out with Rachel, the first time he'd done that in ages._

_"Yeah, let's do it!" she shouted, and Jake found himself shaking his head and laughing. Even with the war over and no more missions to go on, Rachel just doesn't change. He thinks it's oddly refreshing._

_So they spent the next hour surfing. Or rather, trying to surf; they ended up falling off the surfboards more often than they managed to stay on. But he made sure that the red bracelet doesn't fall off._

_Eventually, they got worn out and made their way back to the shore to dry off and relax._

_"We should do stuff like this more often," Rachel said. "You know, make up for all the lost time we didn't do stuff together as cousins."_

_"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," Jake agreed._

_(Deep down, he feels like he's replacing Tom, and just using Rachel as a replacement for him. Logically, he knows that's not true, but the sense of guilt just doesn't go away.)_

_When Jake got back home, he found Cassie waiting for him._

_It was awkward at first, but Jake worked up the nerve to finally talk to Cassie about what was on his mind._

_He spoke about how guilty he felt, like why should he be happy and have a normal life when Tom and so many other people no longer can, and he feels like he doesn't deserve Cassie again after everything that's happened..._

_But before he realized what was happening, Cassie leaned in, put her hands to his face, and gave him a deep kiss._

_When they finally separated, if only to come up for air, she smiled and said, "How about we try again?"_

_"You really want to still be with me?" he asked her, looking her dead in the eye. "Even after everything...?"_

_"Do you really think I would say that if I didn't mean it, Jake?" she asked him pointedly._

_For what felt like the first time since the war officially ended, Jake felt like he's actually smiling again._

_"Well, since you asked, here's my answer..."_

_And with that, he leaned in to kiss her this time, and held her tight._

_They didn't take things too far, just in case anyone else walked in, but Jake was content to just cuddle with Cassie on the couch until they were both tired enough to doze off right there..._

* * *

"...but then when I wake up, it's all different..." Jake mumbles.

* * *

_Jake woke up all by himself. There was no sign that Cassie had ever been there._

_But the green bracelet is still there. It's oddly reassuring, somehow._

_"Come on, midget, let's see what you've got."_

_Once again, Jake and Tom were shooting hoops at a local gym. It had been after hours, but the fitness center's administrators were nice enough to let the Berenson brothers have some private time there on a Sunday evening after it closed at normal business hours. Anything for the heroes of Earth, they supposed._

_After an intense, impromptu one-on-one match, they both took a break and sat down, going for their water bottles._

_They sat in silence for a while, until Jake finally spoke up._

_"You know," he said slowly, "that night when we first got the power to morph... earlier that day, my biggest worry was that I didn't make the basketball team, and I didn't know how you'd react to that. I was afraid of disappointing you somehow."_

_Tom digested the words... and then snorted._

_"It all seems so insignificant now, doesn't it?" Tom remarked. "After everything that's happened, after everything we've been through..."_

_"Yeah," Jake remarked, for want of anything better or more profound to say._

_"So, what else is new with you?" Tom asked. "What's bothering you today? Talk to me. Tell your big brother Tom all your problems."_

_Jake wants to tell him how much he misses Cassie, what he and she had together... but he can't. How he doesn't think Cassie would or could want to be with him after getting Rachel - her best friend and his own cousin - killed in the final battle. How he doesn't think he's entitled to all that much happiness after sending Rachel to her own death on top of all the other horrible things he's done._

_But a small part of him wonders if it's even that big a deal, because he's already well on his way to mending bridges with Cassie in the other life... but of course he can't tell Tom about that._

_"No, forget it, Tom," he said at last. "It's nothing."_

_"I don't believe it, but I'll pretend to believe you," Tom retorted, in a good-natured kind of way. "And I'll be here ready and waiting for when you do."_

_Jake let out what could have been a laugh before he composed himself. "Thanks, Tom."_

_Tom pulled Jake into a hug. "Anytime, midget."_

* * *

He _almost_ smiles at that memory in front of this therapist, this new memory of being able to truly shoot hoops with Tom for the first time in what felt like forever.

* * *

His therapists - both of his therapists, in either world - are fascinated by his claim, that somehow he's jumping back and forth between two alternate worlds every time he falls asleep and then opens his eyes again.

Neither of them say the exact same thing, but both of them say something to the effect about how this is incredible, about how they've never seen or heard of anything like this before, and so on.

And in both worlds, Jake just scoffs and smirks at those words.

And when either therapist asks for clarification to that particular reaction, Jake just replies, "That's what the other shrink said, too."

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:** So, what did you think of all that? Shall I continue? Does anyone else want to play with this? (And just in case it wasn't clear, the "red" reality is where Rachel is alive and Jake visits the male therapist, while the "green" reality is where Tom is alive and Jake visits the female therapist. The color of the bracelet tells him which reality he's currently "awake" in.)

So I heard about this short-lived TV series _Awake_ where a man is stuck bouncing between two different realities following a deadly car accident, one where his wife lives but his son dies, and vice versa. Now after reading the _Animorphs_ fanfics by **SoloMoon** (where Tom lives but Rachel dies) and **Feeney** (where Rachel lives but Tom dies), I decided to do something like this.


End file.
